Books: Music on the Muscatatuck

Somewhere on the banks of the Muscatatuck River, in the mid-19th
Century, lived Jess Birdwell, Quaker and nurseryman. Jess thought he
had everything life could give, except a chance to listen to music. His
wife, Eliza, was a minister"good-looking, as female preachers are apt
to be." But like most of the local Quakers, Eliza believed that music
was "a popish dido, a sop to the senses, a hurdle waiting to trip man
in his upward struggle." She had to give Jess a pretty stern nudge in...